Chapter 190 : Chapter 190
Chapter 190. Slaughter
At that moment, five Dragon-Lion Knight Legions had already landed one after another on the Sea of Despair.
The instant they landed, they charged straight at the Orc Alliance’s forces. The six orc legions stationed there had not even had time to form up before they were smashed apart by the surging tide of the assault.
“Kill!”
The dragon-lions’ massive claws crushed orc skulls, while the knights’ longswords split open tough beast hides. Blood mixed with seawater and flowed into streams across the beach.
Those orc warriors who had only just disembarked from the transport ships were still reeling from seasickness when dragon breath burned straight through their chests, and their corpses rolled into the sea like broken logs.
“Lava Clan, hold the line!”
Amid the shouts, a unit of orc troops covered head to toe in obsidian-like scales charged forward.
They were the Lava Clan’s elite. Their skin could withstand ordinary blades, and they could even spit scorching magma.
When the dragon-lions’ claws struck their bodies, they left only a few white marks. Even Dou Qi falling onto their scales produced nothing more than faint wisps of smoke.
“For the clan!”
A Lava Clan leader roared and spat magma at the nearest dragon-lion. The dragon beast shrieked in pain, and its rider was forced to leap from its back, only to be hacked into pieces by several orc battle axes in an instant.
That brief counterattack stalled the battle line for a moment.
The Lava Clan warriors formed a shield wall and used their bodies to block the Dragon-Lion Knight Legions’ charge. Every time one fell, another immediately stepped in to replace him. The sand beneath their feet hissed and sizzled from the heat of their blood.
But in the end, the resistance was futile.
The commander of the Dragon-Lion Knight Legions raised a golden battle standard, and three reserve units swept in from the flanks.
A fiercer savagery mixed into the dragon-lions’ roars. They no longer charged head-on. Instead, they used their speed to circle behind the shield wall, their claws ripping open the throats of Lava Clan warriors with deadly precision.
The knights coordinated by hurling jars of burning pitch. The flames clung to the orcs’ scales, and even the Lava Clan could not endure that relentless burning.
“Retreat... retreat...”
The surviving Lava Clan warriors began to break, only to be dragged back into the battlefield one by one by the dragon-lions’ fangs.
Their last leader was surrounded by three Legendary Knights. With the last of his strength, he spat out a torrent of magma, melting one knight’s armor, but his own chest was pierced through by two spears from the others. His massive body crashed to the ground, splashing a sheet of scalding blood.
The coastline gradually fell quiet. Only the sound of dragon-lions licking the blood from their claws remained, along with the wash of waves over the corpses.
The bodies of the six orc legions were piled up like mountains, and what remained of the Lava Clan warriors had already been reduced to charred ash or mangled flesh.
The originally dark beach had been dyed a dusky purple, and even the sea breeze carried the burnt stench of blood.
The commander reined in his dragon-lion and looked over the field of carnage before expressionlessly raising a hand.
“Clean up the battlefield. In one hour, advance into the Barbarian heartland.”
The dragon-lion let out a deep growl, as though answering the order.
At last, sunlight broke through the clouds and shone over the bloodstained beach. Glittering scales, shattered armor, and clotted blood formed a savage tableau beneath the light.
At the same time, inside the Orc Alliance’s palace, the vaulted ceiling echoed with roars and the sounds of smashing objects. The crisp shattering of beast-bone goblets mixed with coarse curses, like a storm on the verge of collapse.
The chieftains of eight clans wore ashen expressions, their fists clenched so tightly that their joints cracked. In the end, the way they looked at the Beast Emperor held nothing but contempt and fury. As they turned away, their cloaks swept across the fur carpet on the floor and stirred a gust of wind.
“A bunch of short-sighted fools.”
Watching their backs disappear beyond the palace doors, the Beast Emperor let out a low growl. Rage surged in his golden vertical pupils, but beneath it lay a trace of helplessness.
The First Prince stood to one side, his fangs biting into his lower lip. He wanted to speak several times, yet in the end swallowed his words.
He saw the whitened knuckles gripping his father’s scepter. He saw the relief carvings on the palace pillars that recorded the Alliance’s glory, and at that moment, they seemed to be mocking them in silence.
That very evening, eight conscription orders were issued simultaneously from the territories of the eight great clans, so swiftly that they had not even passed through the Beast Emperor for approval.
The cavalry of the Frostwolf Clan trampled the morning dew across the grasslands, and their wolves’ howls merged into a single long cry across the wilderness.
The warriors of the Lava Clan poured out from their fortress deep within the volcanoes, obsidian battle axes slung over their shoulders, their armor still spattered with molten magma.
The shamans of the Warsong Clan beat their war drums, their songs filled with the madness of mutual destruction.
The sappers of the Blackstone Clan pushed their battering rams forward, and the rumble of iron wheels crushing the earth startled distant birds into flight.
The berserkers of the Bloodring Clan drank berserker potions, their eyes turning red as blood.
The assassins of the Shattered Hand Clan vanished into the dense woods, their daggers gleaming coldly beneath the moonlight.
The witch doctors of the Shadowmoon Clan raised bone staffs and summoned beasts from the shadows.
The giant-beast riders of the Thunderking Clan mounted their thunder elephants, each step making the ground tremble faintly.
The eight armies moved like eight savage giant serpents. Ignoring the Beast Emperor’s ban, they crossed the border in vast force and advanced toward the Eastern Continent.
They were going to seek revenge—for their clansmen who had died along the coast of the Sea of Despair, for the dignity trampled underfoot by the Radiant Sun Empire, and because, in the eyes of the clan chieftains, the Beast Emperor had already lost the glory of the Alliance through weakness and incompetence.
From the high platform of the palace, the Beast Emperor looked at the dust rising in the eastern sky and slowly closed his eyes.
A few minutes later, his eyes slowly opened again. His laughter echoed through the empty palace, carrying a coldness that had been suppressed for far too long.
He slowly straightened up. His golden vertical pupils flickered with calculating light beneath the candle flames, and his fingertips lightly tapped the armrest of the throne, each tap sounding like a countdown to the fate of the eight great clans.
“Unruly?”
He repeated the words in a low voice, and a cruel curve lifted at the corner of his mouth.
“They want war, so I’ll give them a ‘surprise.’”
“I am the emperor of this Orc Alliance. If they refuse to obey my orders, I’ll make sure they never live well again.”
That very night, countless shadows moved through the secret passages of the imperial palace. Orders sealed with the Beast Emperor’s wax stamp shot out like poisoned arrows toward every corner of the empire.
The Beast Emperor did not mobilize a single soldier. Instead, he turned his attention to the “blood vessels” the eight great clans had planted deep within the empire’s body.
Those positions, great and small, scattered throughout the military, administration, taxation, and workshops. Those nodes of influence, all intertwined through clan power.
The four clans he had gathered were all mid-sized clans that had long been suppressed by the eight great clans. Now, like venomous snakes lying in wait, they bared their fangs the moment they received his orders.
Inside the tax offices, officials from the eight great clans were “invited away” overnight. The tricks hidden in the account books were brought to light, and the keys to the treasuries changed hands in an instant.
Within the city defense armies across the land, the generals of the eight great clans who had controlled the checkpoints were accused of “colluding with the enemy” and replaced by the Beast Emperor’s confidants. Control of the city gates changed hands in a single night.
In the workshop districts, the clan overseers who had monopolized the iron mines and forging operations woke the next day to discover that the craftsmen no longer obeyed them, and unfamiliar faces were now sitting in the supervisors’ seats.
At first, the eight great clans paid little mind to any of this, dismissing it as the Beast Emperor’s feeble counterattack.
It was not until the following morning, when the younger members responsible for handling imperial affairs returned in a panic, that they realized the severity of the situation.
Tax revenues had been intercepted. Military authority had been seized. Industries had ground to a halt... The influence they had spread throughout the empire’s veins had been uprooted in a single night.
When the chieftains of the eight great clans, furious beyond measure, gathered their forces and tried to storm back to the imperial capital to demand an explanation, they discovered that the roads to the palace had already been blocked layer upon layer.
And on the other side of those blockades stood warriors from four clans, the banners in their hands bearing the Beast Emperor’s exclusive Black Wolf totem.
“A purge?”
Standing atop the palace arrow tower, the Beast Emperor looked at the fury blazing in the camps of the eight great clans in the distance and let out a cold laugh.
“This is called pulling their teeth. Once wolves lose their fangs, no matter how savage they are, they won’t be able to bite through my armor.”
In the night, the empire’s map of power was being quietly redrawn, and this bloodless purge was only the beginning of the Beast Emperor’s “obedience plan.”
Yet for the Black Wolf Clan, the clan to which the Beast Emperor belonged, this turmoil was only the beginning as well. The eight great clans soon launched their counterattack.
Although the four mid-sized clans gathered by the Beast Emperor still suffered considerable losses under his protection, compared to what they gained, the cost was well worth it.